Are there block rates for hotels?

We have a room block at The Congress Plaza Hotel with a nightly rate of $180. When you make the reservation, let them know that you are using the Write/Speak/Code room block. This special rate is only for a limited number of rooms. We just checked today and were told that we had a few rooms left at this rate so get them while they’re available!

If you run into trouble using the room rate, connect to extension 5025 or 5026 to speak with someone who can help.

At Write/Speak/Code this year we did something new: a public call for proposals for our keynote slots. In creating our CFP we as a conference had a few key considerations that we used to help us craft the CFP:

Accessibility: The CFP itself should be simple and easy to understand

Financial assistance: We wanted to communicate to applicants that we will offer support for those selected

Opportunity: For speakers from underrepresented communities we wanted to emphasize that our conference is particularly mindful of diversity

Values: Again, our entire conference and all speakers will have to abide by our Code of Conduct

Throughout the CFP our speaker outreach team was asked a few common questions such as: What topics do you want to hear from? Should I speak about a particular technical topic? As a beginner speaker, am I allowed to apply?

Broadly these topics align with the themes of each of our three days; writing for a technical audience, speaking at technical conferences, and contributing to open source software. This year we introduced our Alumna track and added a fourth day that included topics to highlight Career Development and Self Care. Because our conference focuses on actionable steps on advancement, we didn’t seek out talks with technical buzzwords like “big data,” “agile,” or “microservices.” Instead, we took a close look at each applicant’s personal story behind their abstract and compare it to how it aligns to our values defined by our Code of Conduct and how it flowed with our “themed” days.

By the close of our CFP we received 150 submissions! Here are a few stats from the CFP submissions:

Where applicants from

From six countries – Brazil, India, Romania, United States, United Kingdom, Zimbabwe

Our speaker outreach team painstakingly reviewed each talk, pruning outliers that weren’t applicable for the conference, or simply put weren’t coming from the appropriate voice, such as the men who applied. After ensuring the remaining submissions were on message with our conference, we reflected on the themes attendees were interested in learning more about this year. Finally, we anonymized the submissions and passed them onto a speaker selection committee.

Our speaker selection committee comprised of women coders – those who are women of color, representative of the LGBTQ community, mothers, front end developers, developers from different languages, and developers from different problem spaces (e.g. academia, web development). All of the members of our speaker selection committee have participated as a speaker or an organizer in the past and we believe that these are people who align with our core values and embody them to the fullest.

After receiving the top selections from our speaker selection committee, the speaker outreach team confirmed that selected speakers are representative of the diverse community of women that attend our conference.

Our final keynote speaker selection included two transgender women, two women of color, three women in senior leadership positions, and women who code in over four languages as their primary language.

There were simply too many talks we loved that luckily we were able to add some speakers in non-keynote roles for our alumni and self-care tracks. However, this is but a first step for us at Write/Speak/Code and it our hope to broaden our reach by adding more speaking opportunities to our conference in the future.

June 15-18, 2016

Naomi Ceder

Naomi Ceder has been learning, teaching, using, and talking about Python since 2001. She is the author of the Quick Python Book, 2nd edition, the sprints organizer for PyCon, and the co-founder of Trans*Code, a UK based hack day focussing on trans issues. Having worked as an organizer in various communities for almost 20 years, Naomi is a member of the board of directors of the Python Software Foundation for 2015/2016. She speaks about her own experiences of marginalization with the hope of making the communities she loves more diverse and welcoming. In her spare time she enjoys knitting and deep philosophical conversations with her dogs.

Annyce Davis

Annyce is an Android Google Developer Expert. She has been in the tech industry for over a decade and has spent the past 5 years developing applications for the Android ecosystem across multiple form factors. She is also a international conference speaker and author, sharing her knowledge of Android development with others. In addition, Annyce is active in the Washington, DC tech scene and assists with running a local meetup focused on Android development and design.

Julianna Rusakiewicz

Actor turned designer turned developer, I am a bootcamp graduate trying to make my way in an ever-changing and growing field. I grew up in New England and became an adult in New York City, so I yearn for the city and the woods. I primarily develop in Ruby on Rails and AngualrJS, though I am often asked to update WordPress sites. After 15 years in the Theater scene, I accepted a position at a creative agency in Midtown Manhattan. I am constantly learning and trying new things!

Alex Qin

Alex Qin is a Brooklyn based engineer and educator. She spends a lot of time thinking about how to make programming accessible to all. During work hours, she writes code at Skillshare. In her spare time, she enjoys teaching children and adults to code with ScriptEd, Technovation, and giving talks about code, community, and accessibility. She also loves food, and spent part of last summer building a vegetable farm in Brooklyn where the Domino Sugar Factory used to be.

Fureigh

Fureigh is an Oakland-based software architect who believes technology should be kind to humans and so should the state. After their 2014 Code for America fellowshipreducing repeat 911 calls in Long Beach, Calif., they joined 18F, a digital strategy team transforming the federal government from the inside out. Fureigh started New York City’s Drupal Ladder skill-building meetups, has taught United Nations employees how to use Git, and has spoken at conferences ranging from Open Source Bridge toCreating Change.

Coraline Ada Ehmke

Coraline Ada Ehmke is a speaker, writer, teacher, open source advocate and technologist with 20 years of experience in developing apps for the web. As a founding member of Open Source 4 Women and Contributor Covenant, she works diligently to promote diversity and inclusivity in open source. Her current interests include refactoring, code analytics and artificial intelligence.